This was my fourth time doing Ludum Dare, and I’ve written a brief postmortem about how it went. \u00a0Hope people enjoy the game.<\/p>\n
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Things that went right:<\/strong><\/p>\n Theme:<\/em><\/p>\n Although I didn\u2019t like the theme at first, it ended up working really well with my skill set.\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty bad at making art, and the theme required minimal art assets.\u00a0 The final game ended up with only two sprites.\u00a0 I\u2019m considerably more confident with music, but the design I came up with for the theme also required minimal art assets.\u00a0 One .wav file with a single note produces the whole soundtrack, with the player\u2019s help.\u00a0 The creativity this allows the player is one of the most important aspects of the game.<\/p>\n Lots of programming\/design time:<\/em><\/p>\n With little need for art\/sound assets, I figured I\u2019d end up with a surplus of time for level design.\u00a0 This was the main reason I decided to do a game with static levels in the first place; I wouldn\u2019t have had the time for that if I were making more sprites\/music.\u00a0 This didn\u2019t quite end up being the case, as programming took longer than I expected.\u00a0 Still, this was a positive overall.\u00a0 It let me fix most bugs and increased overall polish.<\/p>\n Quickly implementing key features:<\/em><\/p>\n Though I spent the majority of the competition programming, most of the \u2018big stuff\u2019 went pretty quickly.\u00a0 The launchers, saving\/loading levels, and the sound logic went smoothly thanks to past experience with XNA.\u00a0 As noted below, physics bugs (and a couple editor problems) were the only real time-consuming issues.<\/p>\n Overlaps in gameplay\/design:<\/em><\/p>\n When making a game on such a short timeframe, it\u2019s important to get as much \u2018bang for your buck\u2019 with your time.\u00a0 That\u2019s one of the things I like about music games like this; the audio, game design, and programming are all tightly linked.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have to spend a bunch of time making music tracks, because that was what level design was.\u00a0 I could iterate on all three at the same time.<\/p>\n The same thing applies to Free Play mode.\u00a0 I made a simple editor for myself, which was trivial to expose to the player.\u00a0 This lets the player make his own puzzles\/music freely, and it didn\u2019t cost me much time to add.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Things that went wrong:<\/strong><\/p>\n Physics bugs:<\/em><\/p>\n As many commenters have noted, there are some noticeable physics bugs in the game; the worst being balls getting stuck in platforms.\u00a0 These bugs are extra annoying in my game because they can end up producing notes extremely frequently, producing really harsh sound.\u00a0 I spent a significant amount of time during the competition trying to fix these bugs and lessen the annoyance when they do occur.\u00a0 This did help in the end, but it was pretty demoralizing focusing on the issue so much and not fully fixing it.<\/p>\n \u2018Wasted\u2019 time:<\/em><\/p>\n I spent more time not working on the game over the weekend than I planned going into it.\u00a0 A surprise visit from a friend from out of town took up a few hours.\u00a0 It was worth it, but there would have been many more levels if that didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n Distribution:<\/em><\/p>\n Although the problem has been fixed, my initial release had a couple issues.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t include the XNA Redistributable so the game crashed for some, and others were unhappy that it required an install.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had similar issues in the past, but at least I did a better job fixing them this time.<\/p>\n Hardware issues:<\/em><\/p>\n One of my monitors failed comically early in the competition.\u00a0 I spent some time trying to fix it, couldn\u2019t, and was left with a sub-optimal setup.\u00a0\u00a0 Not a huge deal, but I\u2019m sure it had some effect on my productivity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m really happy with the result of this Ludum Dare.\u00a0 It\u2019s a much stronger game than my previous attempts.\u00a0 There are a few things I could have done differently that would have led to a better product, but those are just further learning experiences.\u00a0 I\u2019ve definitely improved my craft and look forward to LD27!<\/p>","time":"May 19th, 2013 7:38 pm","title":"Spheres Postmortem"}